[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 75 (Wednesday, May 9, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2586-S2589]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Net Neutrality

  Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I am pleased to join my colleagues on 
the floor to very strongly support the Congressional Review Act 
resolution to restore net neutrality and maintain a free and open 
internet. I applaud Senator Ed Markey for his leadership in introducing 
this Congressional Review Act resolution.
  Restoring net neutrality is especially critical to small businesses 
and startup companies in New Hampshire and across the United States. 
Small businesses are the backbone of our Granite State's economy. They 
represent 99 percent of our employers. The internet continues to 
provide opportunity for these small businesses because it levels the 
playing field. It makes it easier to find new customers and grow 
online, but that level playing field is now in jeopardy because of the 
Federal Communications Commission's decision to end net neutrality 
protections.
  Last Thursday, I convened a field hearing of the Senate Committee on 
Small Business and Entrepreneurship at the University of New Hampshire. 
I wanted to hear concerns of our small business owners about what the 
net neutrality rollback would mean to them. In particular, they are 
concerned that net neutrality will impede their ability to expand and 
create jobs.
  In conversations with small business owners and leaders across my 
State, they tell me this rollback is a direct threat to their 
businesses. They say it would be like watching their large competitors 
take the highway while they are forced to take the slow roads. Without 
net neutrality, broadband providers could charge more for fast lanes--a 
cost that many small businesses simply can't afford. This would put 
them at an even greater competitive disadvantage vis-a-vis large 
corporations that have the resources to pay for those fast lanes. In 
the digital age, speed is critical.
  Witnesses at our field hearing pointed to research showing that even 
small delays of a second or less--just think about that, a second or 
less--can lead to the loss of significant sales. Customers today expect 
a fast, easy online experience. It is clear, small businesses operating 
at slim margins would lose out to big firms that can afford the fast 
lane.
  Josh Cyr, who testified at our hearing, is an executive with Alpha 
Loft. Alpha Loft is a startup incubator that is based in Manchester and 
Portsmouth, NH. At the field hearing, he had a stark warning. He said:

       The repeal of net neutrality protections enables a small 
     handful of very powerful internet providers tremendous 
     control over what is delivered to consumers' homes and the 
     speed with which it is delivered. Without net neutrality, the 
     power and control these internet providers have will allow 
     them to create artificial market barriers.

  The repeal of net neutrality would pose even greater challenges for 
small businesses in rural areas. As Senator Klobuchar said, she has a 
lot of rural areas in Minnesota. Well, so does New Hampshire. A 2015 
survey by the University of New Hampshire showed that nearly 40 percent 
of New Hampshire residents who were polled said they were using their 
current provider because it is the only option available to them. Many 
rural small businesses will have nowhere else to turn if their 
broadband provider decides to charge more or slow down the connection. 
Our witnesses noted that net neutrality could heighten the rural urban 
divide, making it more challenging for small businesses and rural 
communities to reach customers, attract workers, and stay connected.
  One of the other people testifying at the hearing was Nancy Pearson. 
She is the director of the New Hampshire Center for Women and 
Enterprise. She testified that net neutrality is a matter of equality. 
She said:

       New Hampshire small businesses and microbusinesses rely on 
     the equalizing force of the internet, and just to put that in 
     perspective, women start businesses at five times the rate of 
     any other entrepreneur--

[[Page S2587]]

     and for minority women and veterans, that number is even 
     higher. So when we start putting barriers in the way of these 
     entrepreneurs, it can have a significant and, I think, 
     disastrous effect.

  The FCC's rollback of net neutrality rules is also creating 
tremendous uncertainty, especially for startup businesses that are 
looking to plan ahead. It could have major ramifications on sales, 
marketing, and internet costs that small businesses just can't predict.
  Participants at the field hearing warned that the FCC's decision will 
affect not only businesses but also institutions of higher education. 
It will also negatively impact efforts to provide telemedicine 
consultations to patients who don't have access to services locally. 
Again, we have a big rural population in New Hampshire--well, a small 
population but a lot of rural areas.
  I am concerned, for instance, about the impact on the Veterans' 
Administration's outpatient clinic in Littleton, NH. It relies on 
telemedicine to provide psychiatric care to veterans in remote 
locations. What will happen if they can no longer provide that service 
because they don't have the ability to pay for those lanes anymore?
  Small businesses, consumers, and all Americans who care about a level 
playing field on the internet have every reason to be concerned by the 
FCC's repeal of net neutrality protections, but their ill-considered 
rollback doesn't have to be the last word. We can bring to the floor a 
bipartisan resolution to prevent the FCC's rollback from going forward.
  A coalition of more than 6,000 small businesses across the country 
sent a letter to Congress asking us to protect them by overturning the 
FCC's decision to repeal net neutrality. Further, at my field hearing 
last week, Granite State small businesses offered compelling testimony 
about the importance of net neutrality to their competitiveness and 
their ability to expand and hire new workers. We must not ignore this 
groundswell of opposition to the FCC's rollback of rules that ensure 
equal access to the internet.
  I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support the 
Congressional Review Act resolution. Let's restore net neutrality 
protections and ensure a free and open internet, with access on equal 
terms, for all businesses and consumers.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
  Ms. CORTEZ MASTO. Mr. President, I am proud to stand with my good 
colleague from New Hampshire and all of my colleagues today in defense 
of net neutrality.
  Net neutrality has leveled the playing field for every American 
consumer, allowing everyone to access and enjoy an open internet. 
Thanks to the internet provided by schools and public libraries, 
students have been able to utilize information available online to 
enhance their education or help them do their homework.
  I have heard from librarians and library administrators from all 
across Nevada expressing their concerns about the direct negative 
impact net neutrality's repeal would have on Nevadans. They told me 
that repealing net neutrality would hamper their ability to provide 
Nevadans with essential services. According to the Pew Research Center, 
``Library users who take advantage of libraries' computers and internet 
connections are more likely to be young, black, female, and lower 
income.''
  In Nevada, I know students who don't have access to internet at home 
now go to the library to do their homework. Nevadans applying for jobs 
currently use the internet in public libraries to connect with 
employers to submit resumes and job applications. Many Nevadans use the 
internet and internet access to learn new skills through training 
resources that are available online.
  In November of last year, I received a letter from the Las Vegas-
Clark County Library District strongly opposing the repeal of net 
neutrality. The Las Vegas-Clark County Library District is the largest 
in the State and serves over 1.6 million people. The letter reads:

       Many of our customers, even in the urban areas of the 
     county, are not able to afford access to the internet at 
     their homes at all, and rely on public libraries to complete 
     their school work, research information about starting small 
     businesses, and whatever else they need to do on the 
     internet.

  Limiting the ability of public libraries to provide fast, reliable 
internet service means limiting opportunities for Nevadans to thrive.
  Through simple online marketing or by using online sales platforms, 
small businesses have the opportunity to improve their visibility and 
expand their customer base.
  It has become possible for startup companies to get a fair chance at 
competing in highly saturated markets because of internet 
accessibility.
  It is true in Nevada and all across the country that the internet has 
opened doors for jobs, businesses, education, innovation, and 
technology, and net neutrality protections have allowed the country to 
continue opening those doors.
  As access to the internet has exploded, more and more Americans have 
been empowered to start their own business ventures. More specifically, 
there has been a sharp growth in women business owners due in large 
part to a freely accessible, fair and open internet.
  As you have heard, between 2007 and 2016, women-owned firms grew at a 
rate of five times the national average, mirroring the emergence of the 
internet as a platform for economic growth. For example, Etsy, an 
online shopping platform, caters to small businesses, 87 percent of 
which are owned by women.
  Just last week, I held a roundtable in Reno with women entrepreneurs. 
One of their biggest concerns was the repeal of net neutrality and how 
that would adversely affect their business's profitability and success.
  With net neutrality's repeal, business owners, like Katie, who 
cofounded a tech company in Reno, would have to go up against large 
corporations that can afford to buy faster internet speeds. This would 
stifle competition, and it would cripple the growth of small businesses 
like hers. Katie told me:

       It would really be a stifling situation for us, not only 
     financially, but from an innovation standpoint. Your dollars 
     have to go to furthering your business, not paying to deliver 
     it.

  Nevada's economic growth depends on the small business owners, like 
Katie, who invest in our communities, and that is why we can't afford 
to repeal net neutrality.
  Chairman Pai's misguided decision to repeal net neutrality 
protections threatens to change the internet as we know it. It 
threatens our small businesses, access to online education, job growth, 
and innovation by giving those who can afford to pay more the ability 
to set their own rules.
  Nevada's small businesses, local hospitals, public libraries, and 
disadvantaged communities, among many others, will bear the burden as 
they become subject to the whims of broadband providers that now have 
the ability to elevate their own content and pick and choose which 
websites Nevadans can have access to.
  The FCC has a longstanding responsibility of protecting American 
consumers and the public interest. While Chairman Pai refuses to 
properly do his job, I urge my colleagues to vote in support of the CRA 
and stand with all Americans, regardless of their income.
  Thank you.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, when we look at what this body has done 
over the past year and a half, when we look at what the U.S. Senate 
stands for and what the 100 Members of the Senate have done in the last 
18 months, unfortunately, one thing is really clear: Corporations get 
handout after handout while ordinary Americans get the shaft.
  Corporations are doing really, really, really well, especially those 
companies that shut down production in places like Mansfield, Toledo, 
Lima, and Gainesville and moved production overseas; those companies 
are rewarded. They are rewarded because down the hall, often in the 
dead of night, lobbyists gather in the majority

[[Page S2588]]

leader's office and write tax legislation, write healthcare 
legislation, and write consumer legislation that always helps the 
richest and the biggest and the most profitable in our country and 
leaves out the middle class, working families, and low-income 
Americans.
  We saw it with the tax bill. Eighty percent of the benefits over the 
course of this bill--80 percent of the benefits, $4 out of every $5--go 
to the top 1 percent of earners in this country. Reports show that 
corporations have funneled their tax savings to executives and 
investors over workers by a three-to-one margin.
  The people who wrote this tax bill promised us that the money saved 
by large corporations--their tax rates were cut from 35 to 22 percent 
and other kinds of tax goodies were bestowed on the largest 
corporations in this country. They promised the tax savings would go to 
higher wages for workers and investments in communities that produce 
more jobs. Do my colleagues know what happened not too many weeks ago? 
General Motors near Youngstown, OH, announced they were laying off 
1,500 workers.
  General Motors saved billions of dollars under the tax bill, but that 
money didn't go to Youngstown or Ohio or the workers, and it didn't go 
to investments in communities; it went to the executives in higher 
compensation. Right before the tax break, the five top-earning 
executives at General Motors brought home $100 million last year. That 
was before the tax cut, before taxes were raised on all of you in the 
middle class. Taxes are raised on working families over time, and the 
tax breaks go to the richest people in this country.
  We saw it with the tax bill. We saw it with the rollback in 
protections for consumers. It is easier for big banks and payday 
lenders to take advantage of their customers and deny those customers 
their day in court when they are cheated.
  We see it in healthcare legislation when Members of this body--well-
paid U.S. Senators, well-paid, get good benefits, good healthcare 
coverage--were willing to vote time and again to take that healthcare 
coverage away from consumers. In Ohio alone, 500,000 people right now--
over the course of the last few years--have gotten opioid treatment for 
their addiction because they had insurance under the Affordable Care 
Act. These Members of the Senate have tried to take it away from them.
  Now the question is: Are we going to see it again? Are we going to 
see the bias in this body for the wealthiest, largest corporations on a 
tax bill, on a bank bill, on a healthcare bill--are we going to see it 
again with net neutrality? Are my colleagues going to allow corporate 
special interests to shut down the free and open internet or, for 
once--for once--is this body going to stand for the people we serve?
  Net neutrality rules keep the internet free from corporate 
interference. Protecting those rules is vital to protecting free speech 
and consumer choice and access to public information.
  But last December, the FCC--the Federal Communications Commission--on 
a party-line vote, where there is a majority of Republicans on this 
Commission, voted to repeal those rules by one vote, allowing internet 
providers to slow down internet speeds and offer better connectivity to 
the highest bidder.
  I don't know any individual in Dayton or Cincinnati or Gallipolis or 
Bellaire, OH, who has said to me: I don't want net neutrality; I want 
corporations to be able to charge different rates and stick it to 
people with low incomes and offer something better to those people who 
are wealthy. I have never heard anybody say that.
  I know companies that benefit from changing the net neutrality rules; 
I don't know any individuals who want to do that. But it is not 
individuals and the middle class that control this body or control the 
Federal Communications Commission. It is the people who represent the 
largest corporate interests.
  We know that without net neutrality rules, broadband providers can 
charge customers more for faster speeds, squeezing out startups, 
squeezing out nonprofits and rural consumers--consumers who can't 
afford to pay an extra fee. They could be forced to pay for internet 
packages the way we do cable packages--paying more for popular sites 
and to have pages load faster. Anyone who has ever been on the phone 
negotiating packages with their cable company knows how frustrating it 
can be and knows where this could be headed.
  High-speed internet is expensive enough as it is. Customers already 
have too few choices. In some cases in Ohio, for instance, people in my 
State have no choice at all. I will never forget that not too many 
years ago I was talking to a high school sophomore who told me she 
lives in very hilly Appalachia, Southeast Ohio, and she told me that 
she can't really study at home because she doesn't have access to the 
internet, to any kind of high-speed internet, because she lives in a 
valley. She goes to her grandmother's up on a hill to study so she can 
do her school work the way she needs to. If we don't stand up to the 
Federal Communications Commission, if we don't stand up to these big 
telecommunications companies, if we don't stand up and do the right 
thing here, that will continue to be a problem and increasingly be a 
problem for far too many Ohioans. A free and open internet that levels 
the playing field for entrepreneurs and startups to compete with big 
corporations is what we need to have.

  So many of my colleagues love to talk about their support for 
business, but the question is which businesses. It is small businesses 
that drive job creation. It is small businesses that create two-thirds 
of all net new jobs. These are the companies that will be hurt the most 
if the biggest corporations--again, in this Senate--are allowed to 
gouge them for internet fees.
  This shouldn't be partisan. Nobody separates themselves as 
Republicans and Democrats out in my State on these kinds of issues, but 
here it is partisan. Here it is partisan because, first of all, the 
administration looks like a retreat for Wall Street executives, with 
this huge--this very decided bias toward the wealthiest people in this 
country. We know that on issue after issue, this body always sides with 
the largest corporations, but small businesses will be the ones that 
are hurt the most, as I said.
  It shouldn't be partisan. We know the internet is vital to modern 
life and modern businesses.
  Today I spoke to a woman from Cleveland, OH, a small business owner 
named Helen Quinn. She and her husband, Jesse Mason, started Mason's 
Ice Cream as a food truck that would go to local farmers markets. Using 
tools from Google and others, they were able to grow a following for 
their business. In 2014 they had reached a point where they had been 
successful enough that they were able to buy an old, iconic walkup ice 
cream shop in Ohio City, a neighborhood west of downtown Cleveland, not 
far from where I live. They are now operating full time. They employ 
local Clevelanders. They partner with other small businesses in the 
neighborhood.
  This Friday, Helen and Jesse will join me in Cleveland for the Grow 
with Google summit to talk to other small businesses and entrepreneurs 
and job seekers about the best techniques for using the internet to 
grow businesses and find jobs. I would bet any amount that there will 
not be one person there--not one entrepreneur, not one job seeker, not 
one business owner--who says: Oh, I want to relax these net neutrality 
rules. I want to side with the big corporations instead of allowing 
free and equal access to the internet.
  Why would we want to make that harder and more expensive? Rolling 
back these net neutrality rules will hurt the very people all of us 
claim we want to help--small businesses, startups, students, Americans 
looking for jobs. Those are the people who will get hurt.
  Many large corporations will do well under this bill. That typically 
is the motive and mission for people who come out of the majority 
leader's office, these lobbyists who are always working on these issues 
to help corporate America. But rolling back these rules will hurt those 
very people we claim to want to help--again, small businesses and 
startups and entrepreneurs and students and Americans looking for jobs. 
That is why today we are filing a petition to get moving on a bill to 
overturn this disastrous decision and reinstate net neutrality rules.

[[Page S2589]]

  It is another question fundamentally, as pretty much every debate 
here is, of whose side you are on. Are my colleagues going to stand, 
again, with the biggest telecom corporations as they stood with the big 
corporations that outsourced jobs, as they stand with Wall Street, as 
they stand with Big Tobacco, as they stand with the Koch brothers, as 
they stand with the big healthcare companies that deny insurance and 
deny healthcare to working families? Are they going to stand with 
them--with big telecom companies that slow down the internet, slow down 
the economy to pad their own bottom lines? Are we going to stand with 
the people we serve--with hard-working Americans and small businesses 
and students and entrepreneurs who need access to the internet?
  The internet doesn't belong to a wealthy few. This Senate too often 
belongs to a wealthy few. It shouldn't. A lot have opposed those 
efforts. We know, though, that the internet should not belong to a 
wealthy few. The internet belongs to the people we were sent here to 
represent.
  I hope my colleagues will join me and sign this petition to protect a 
free and open internet.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Tillis). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.